Again, almost exactly midway through the second half of Thursday night’s NCAA Tournament game, New Mexico State got within a basket.

And then . . .

Thames jumper, good. Thames jumper, good. Thames jumper, good.

Six points in three possessions. The lead was suddenly six points.

It would take overtime for the Aztecs to put away the Aggies and advance to Saturday’s third-round game against North Dakota State.

But that span Thursday night was one of those times where you’re reminded that while this year’s SDSU squad’s success is largely a product of it playing so well as a team, it is still Thames’ team.

That the Aztecs will go just as far as their senior point guard takes them only becomes truer at this time.

For one thing, Thames averages 4.7 more points, has 23 more steals and 38 more assists than any other Aztec. He’s accounted for 24 percent of the scoring on a team that sometimes struggles to sink shots.

But his import to SDSU’s success can only partially be measured numerically.

A part of the reason this team is such a team is because its leader is so unassuming it borders on anonymous, so calm you wonder about his blood flow.

When a Sweet Sixteen berth is on he line, when no one can stop talking about upstarts pulling upsets, when the madness reaches a maddening intensity, it’s good to have a guy like Thames.

Unflappable? If Thames saw flames, he’d whisper, “Fire,” and then go about putting it out. No yelling, no panic. Just getting it done.

“Xavier has allowed our team to be pretty much like this in terms of how we react to things,” Steve Fisher said Friday, sliding his hand evenly across the air in front of him. “We don't get too overly excited, nor do we get too despondent. We have some peaks and valleys, but he has a way of levelling them off and not allowing them to be major extremes.”

Thames is, quite simply, in control.

And there are some numbers that illustrated that truth.

Thames went 190 minutes without a turnover this season and has given the ball away just 47 times in 1,056 minutes. (That’s about an hour-and-a-half more than the next-busiest SDSU player, by the way.)

He’s not infallible. His one turnover Thursday came with 15 seconds remaining in regulation and allowed New Mexico State to tie the game and get to overtime.

Thames was mortified, though you wouldn’t have known by watching his expression. But he did emphatically respond.

He scored the first basket of overtime to give SDSU the lead for good and tied Dwayne Polee for the team high with five points in the extra period. His 23 points made him the game’s leading scorer, as he has been 17 times this season.

The Aztecs (30-4) have won without Thames being a prolific scorer in certain games – but they didn’t do so against top competition. Thames dropped 26 on Creighton and 29 on Marquette in back-to-back games. He had 16 at Kansas, 31 in an overtime win at Utah State. His 23 points in the regular-season finale against New Mexico, which clinched the Mountain West title, included 10 in the final 9:43, as SDSU came back from a 16-point deficit.

That was the third time this season the Aztecs won a game in which they trailed by at least six points at halftime. In all three of those victories, Thames had a huge second half – a combined 41 points, four steals and 10 assists.

“I'm hoping there's an elevator malfunction and he gets caught in the elevator,” North Dakota State Head Coach Saul Phillips said Friday. “That's what I'm hoping. He's really, really, really good. Everything they do, I believe, starts going through him.”

Whether what SDSU does continues past Saturday depends, as it has so much, largely on Thames.